[ Golden Gater Online - February 20, 1997 ]
Doug Seto
Staff Writer
The entertaining Star Trek conventions of the past that prompted actor William Shatner to tell his fans "to get a life," have spun off into a new orbit.
The gatherings of fans dressed in outlandish space costumes and the waiting in long autograph lines to purchase over-priced memorabilia may soon be replaced with university colloquiums, a place where the Star Trek phenomenon has never gone before.
Star Trek colloquiums are 90s happenings where "Trekkers," or "Sophisticated Trekkies" listen to what scientists, philosophers and sociologists have to say about the science-fiction series.
On February 14 and 15, SF State's science and humanities convergence department, NEXA, hosted "Where No One Has Gone Before," a Star Trek colloquium, in the Humanities Auditorium. The colloquium held sessions that covered artificial intelligence, physics, and gender, race and power and their relationships to Star Trek.
"I came here looking for Star Trek insignia, but couldn't find one," said San Francisco resident Lawrence Herd.
During the artificial intelligence session, SF State NEXA professors lectured on the current progress of constructing a machine that can think.
"Machines lack common sense and the ability to differentiate," said Susan Connell, science and engineering professor. Connell discussed how a computer may be able to recognize "a cup of water" but once the cup is turned upside down and the water spills out, a machine will not register that an object can still be a cup but not "a cup full of water."
Even though "Deep Blue," an IBM computer, was the first machine to defeat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in February 1996, Connell says technology has a lot to go until there is capability to construct androids that can think and talk like R2D2, C3PO and Lieutenant Data.
"I'm not keen on calling it intelligence," Connell said. "Instead, it's an expert program calculating faster and strategizing more moves. Brilliant intuition is what these chess programs still need."
The Keynote Speaker, Franco La Polla, an American Studies professor at the University of Bologna in Italy, provided an international perspective on Star Trek by lecturing on its impact on the world, and particularly in Italy, where he said there is a huge Trekkie following.
"The Next Generation (of Star Trek) opens some common ground such as sexual differences, and especially terrorism, an important problem in Italy," La Polla said.
"I'm a Star Trek Voyager fan because it has the first female Captain," said Leigh Burrill, SF State grad student in literature who agreed with La Polla's analysis of the latest Star Trek television series.
Saturday morning featured a discussion called The Physics Of Star Trek, hosted by a panel of scientists. The panel included NASA Space Shuttle-trained U.C. Berkeley Space Sciences Lab Professor Michael Lampton, SF State Physics Professors Susan Lea and John Burke, and Seth Shostak from SETI, the official space organization dedicated to utilizing the world's largest radio antenna in Mountain View, to pickup radio signals from outer space.
"It's possible that life's out there," Shostak said. "We may be in the 'boondocks' of the galaxy."
Shostak added that if SETI ever makes close encounters with extra-terrestrials., the government wouldn't cover it up.
"The Hanger 19 rumor is good fun but the United States never had a cover-up policy. Something like this would be impossible to cover up," Shostak said.
SETI can be found on the Internet at www.seti.inst.edu
Professors Lea and Burke explained why spaceships will probably never be able to travel faster than the speed of light, or zip in and out of black holes.
"If warp drive is possible, we will get time travel as well, it comes with the package," Burke said.
"Once something enters a black hole, it can never escape," Lea said. "We may someday have the technology to send and take out an atomic particle, but not something the size of the Enterprise."
In addition, Burke and Lea said it may be possible to one day stop a sun from going supernova, which is the first phase of a star's death that causes it to explode, but the process to stop it would take millions of years.
Later, Lea was asked why it's important to talk about the scientific accuracy of Star Trek.
"There's nothing to lose by getting it right and for the people who know, it makes the show even better," Lea said.
"Star Trek raises intellectual issues but it's couched as entertainment," add SF State English Professor Beverly Voloshin.
But despite the fiction-writers great imaginations, the panelists agreed that the advancements witnessed in Star Trek may not occur for another 500 years.
"It's improbable to build tractor beams and space transporters out of your hard disk drive,"
Lampton said.
[ Golden Gater - February 20, 1997 ]